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A Patchwork of Marriages: The Legal Relevance of Marriage in a Plural Legal System

2016; Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law; Volume: 6; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

2079-5971

Elsje Bonthuys,

Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies

Like many former colonies, South Africa has a plural system of family law which has historically recognized the polygynous marriages practiced by the indigenous African inhabitants of the country. However, recognition of these marriages by way of legal pluralism does not afford them equal status with the monogamous Judaeo-Christian marriage imported by European colonisers, nor does it ensure gender equality within families. Instead, the interaction between the colonial and apartheid socio-economic oppression of black people on the one hand, and legal pluralism on the other hand, produces a highly complex family law system, accurately described as ‘a patchwork of patriarchies.’ This paper argues that a far more radical transformation of family law, and one which is more likely to enhance gender equality, would be to move away from conjugality, or a sexual bond, as the basis of marriage and family law. The aim of this shift would be legal rules which recognize those relationships of kinship which have been central to African family practices and which have assisted many families to weather the multiple forms of colonial and white domination. A move away from conjugality as the primary basis of family law would also acknowledge the ever decreasing incidence of marriage and nuclear families, which characterizes contemporary South African society and would place the focus of legal regulation on the protection of socially valuable relationships, rather than the protection of marriage as an institution. Al igual que otras antiguas colonias, Sudafrica tiene sistema de derecho de familia plural, que ha reconocido historicamente los matrimonios en poliginia practicados por personas indigenas africanas. Sin embargo, el reconocimiento de estos matrimonios mediante pluralismo juridico no les garantiza el mismo estatus que el matrimonio monogamico judeocristiano, ni garantiza la igualdad de genero dentro de las familias. Al contrario, la interaccion entre la opresion socioeconomica colonial y el apartheid a las personsa negras por lado, y el pluralismo juridico por otro, produce sistema de derecho de familia muy complejo, que se puede describir mejor como un mosaico de patriarcados. Este articulo defiende alejamiento de la conjugalidad como base del derecho de familia, para reconocer relaciones de parentesco que han sido centrales en las practicas familiares africanas y que han ayudado a muchas familias a sobrellevar la dominacion colonial blanca. Este alejamiento de la conjugalidad tambien reconoceria la disminucion de la incidencia del matrimonio y las familias nucleares en la Sudafrica contemporanea y cambiaria el enfoque de la regulacion juridica para proteger las relaciones socialmente valiosas, en lugar de proteger el matrimonio como institucion. DOWNLOAD THIS PAPER FROM SSRN : https://ssrn.com/abstract=2891014